• Government approves outline state budget deficit of CZK 390 bn for 2022
    06/07/2021

    The Czech government has approved the basic parameters of next year’s state budget deficit, setting it at CZK 390 billion, the minister of finance, Alena Schillerová, told reporters on Monday.

    The minister said that the budget priorities for 2022 were savings on the state administration, including layoffs, investments of CZK 189 billion, an increase in the old-age pension, maintaining a lower income tax rate of 15 percent and raising the salaries of educators, police officers and soldiers and freezing the salaries of state employees.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Czech tourists detained over false Covid test documents
    06/07/2021

    Some members of a group of Czech tourists who returned from Tunisia have admitted that a Czech doctor there gave them confirmations of a Covid-19 test they had never actually undertaken. The country’s immigration police detained the tourists in passport control for several hours at Prague Airport on Saturday evening.

    The minister of foreign affairs, Jakub Kulhánek, said on Monday that he had discussed the matter with the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the police. He also said that he would ask the Ministry of Health to provide travel agencies with guidelines on testing.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • First Czech PPP road building project begins
    06/07/2021

    The first ever public-private partnership road building project in the Czech Republic has got underway. A section of the D4 motorway between Příbram and Mirotice is to be built by 2024 by a consortium known as ViaSalis; it will then operate the road for a quarter of a century in return for payment from the state.

    The minister of transport, Karel Havlíček, said the PPP model would be used again in future to finance other motorways and high-speed rail connections.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Krejčíková makes Grand Slam last eight for first time
    06/07/2021

    The Czech tennis player Barbora Krejčíková has reached the last eight in the singles at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career. The 25-year-old made that step after overcoming Sloane Stephens of the US 6-2 6-0 at the French Open on Monday.

    Krejčíková is primarily known as a doubles specialist and is a previous world doubles number one. She lifted her first WTA singles title recently in Strasbourg.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Tsikhanouskaya calls on Prague to be consistent in approach to Lukashenko regime
    06/07/2021

    The Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has called on the Czech Republic to be consistent in its approach to what she referred to as the unlawful and terrorist regime of President Alexander Lukashenko.

    Speaking at the Czech Senate on Monday, Mrs. Tsikhanouskaya said that the Prague government should support further pressure against Belarus’s leaders and companies linked to them.

    She told reporters that the Minsk government had intensified a crackdown on opponents in recent weeks, adding that this needed to be halted and the persecuted offered support.

    Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is in Prague at the invitation of Senate speaker Miloš Vystrčil. She is also meeting other senior Czech political figures during her visit.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Auditors: Ministry failing to evaluate benefits of migration policy spending
    06/07/2021

    The Ministry of the Interior is not monitoring the benefits of its programmes supporting Czech national migration policy, the Supreme Audit Office said in a report released Monday.

    The targets set by the ministry are vague and no indicators are being used to determine whether they are cost-effective, the auditors said.

    They also identified shortcomings in projects that they said should have been discovered by the ministry at the time they were commissioned.

    Ministry of Interior officials said that they were constantly working on a system to monitor the efficacy of investments in migration policy.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Jobless rate falls, minister says government right to end pay support
    06/07/2021

    Unemployment in the Czech Republic fell to 3.9 percent in May, down from the 4.1 percent recorded the previous month, according to official data released on Monday.

    The unemployment rate in May was three percentage points higher than the figure seen in the same month last year.

    The minister of labour and social affairs, Jana Maláčová, said the latest numbers showed that the government had been right to end a programme supporting workers’ pay in view of the Covid crisis. The economy is opening up and businesses can stand on their own two feet without aid, she said.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Most Czechs not planning holiday; many taking vacation to stay in CR
    06/07/2021

    Over half of Czechs are not planning any holiday this year, suggests a STEM/MARK survey commissioned by Mladá fronta Dnes and published on Monday. Of those who are planning a vacation, 57 percent say they will take it within the borders of the Czech Republic.

    The study found that fears surrounding Covid-19 were the main reason people were reluctant to travel. The financial situation and respondents’ wish to get to know their home country better were other factors.
    Author: Ian Willoughby

  • Government to discuss further easing of restrictions
    06/07/2021

    The government will meet on Monday to debate a further easing of measures against Covid-19. This concerns predominantly an easing of restrictions in the cultural sphere and the possibility of easing the rule on compulsory face masks in schools.

    Culture Minister Lubomír Zaorálek criticized the past easing of restrictions in culture as discriminatory since people at cultural events are required to have tests conducted by professionals, which is not the case in other areas.

    Furthermore, he argued that the lifting of restrictions for cultural events was lagging behind that in neighbour states which have a similar epidemiological situation. The government is to debate a new ceiling of 1,000 people at indoor events and 2,000 outdoors.

    Mandatory testing for Covid-19 in firms and public offices is expected to continue at least until the end of June.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

  • Belarussian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Prague for talks with top officials
    06/07/2021

    Belarussian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya arrived in the Czech Republic on Sunday for a four day visit during which she is scheduled to meet with Czech top officials and address the Czech Senate.  Ms. Tikhanovskaya who is here at the invitation of the Speaker of the Senate Miloš Vystrčil will also meet with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and President Miloš Zeman. Meetings have also been scheduled with the Czech foreign minister, the leaders of several parliamentary parties and members of the Belarussian community in the Czech Republic.

    The Czech Foreign Ministry on Friday issued a statement denouncing the practices of the Lukashenko regime against political opponents and calling for the immediate release of Raman Pratasevich and all other political prisoners in Belarus.
    Author: Daniela Lazarová

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